Living Room
by variousandsundry
Summary: What if Grissom were to move into Sara's apartment complex? GSR. WIP. A little cliche but I'm running with it. Rated for potty mouth language and smooching. Season 5: Post Mea Culpa, pre Nesting Dolls with spoilers for ND.
1. Chapter 1

"Well Mr. Grissom, we hope to be done here in two to three weeks. I don't know why this insulation wasn't put in up to code but there's been a lot changes lately. Fortunately, one of the other properties we manage has a one bedroom furnished unit available. We are willing to put you up there for the duration of the work done. You will most likely wish to relocate your ah, pets as they aren't allowed in that complex." The man looked askance at the atriums of bugs and seemed to forcibly focus back on the conversation. "We're very sorry for the inconvenience this causes you. Here's the address of the apartment and if you'll just sign this temporary lease I'll give you the keys now."

Grissom sighed in irritation and glanced over the lease to make sure he wasn't obligated to pay anything before signing it. Handing the paperwork over to the property manager he accepted the slip of paper with the address and the keys to the apartment. Logically Grissom knew it wasn't the man's fault that he had to be relocated for a month for construction to occur but messengers of bad tidings always wind up with the short end of the stick. It was only as he was left considering how best to bring his bugs to his office at work that he had a realization. He glanced down at the paper with trepidation. The address hadn't changed. He was going to be neighbors with Sara Sidle for the next month.

--

Sara woke up disoriented. She lay still for a moment, trying to ascertain the reasons for her discomfort. She stretched out her legs tentatively and slipped into the air – so she was on a couch and, she fingered the fabric over her, covered with a worn blanket. She stilled herself again and noticed that she was curled to the back of the couch, gripping her cell phone tightly. _Oh right, the alarm._ Sara reached her arm behind her to set the phone on one of the break room's tables but heard it fall to the ground instead. _Aw crap. Well, this means two things. One, I probably just broke my phone. Two, I'm sleeping in Grissom's office. Thank goodness he's –_ She heard someone quietly enter the room and pick up the phone. _– clearly not in the field anymore_. She felt the blanket being pulled up to her shoulders. As the fabric rubbed her skin she found herself dreaming that it was his hands brushing up her arms and she sighed. The footsteps retreated. She should go see if Greg had come up with anything. He would have paged her but considering how she hadn't reacted to her alarm, who knew what she had missed. She rolled over and sat up. "Hey. Sorry, most of the other couches were occupied."

"Not a problem. I just got in." He peered at the lopsided piles of papers on his desk as he spoke.

She looked around for her jacket that she had been using as a pillow and saw it huddled on the ground next to the couch. She picked it up and paused at the doorway for a moment and said, "Hey, Griss?"

He glanced up over his glasses. "Mmmh?"

"Are there more bugs in here or am I just going crazy?"

"Yes there are, I've got construction underway at my house."

"Oh. Wow, that must be noisy hey?"

"Mmmh," he rumbled.

She headed for the DNA lab, yawning and looking forward to her bed for once.

--

There was something about working a double and moving on to your next shift that added a certain aura to the world. That aura was fatigue. Sara leaned against her door as she thumbed through her keys looking for the one that would let her enter her sanctuary. She realized belatedly that she was on her work key ring. She shifted the keys and felt the familiar grip of her house key. _Bonus._ Stepping inside she shut the door, flipping the deadbolt automatically. She tossed her keys and cell phone onto the breakfast bar and stared at her kitchen with a small amount of apprehension. She vaguely recalled a half-eaten microwave veggie potpie who knows how long ago, so she should definitely eat. She opened her fridge. Clearly she needed to go shopping. She glanced at her living room. Clothes were strewn across the furniture and shoes lay were they had been kicked off. She also apparently had to do laundry.

Turning back to the open fridge she spied a jar of applesauce. It would have to do. She sat down on the couch and removed her shoes before putting her feet up on the coffee table. Cracking open the jar she noticed her socks didn't match – one was striped and the other was a solid blue. Chalk another one up to exhaustion. She turned the TV on to a music station and leaned back to enjoy her applesauce. She'd managed to eat a couple spoonfuls before there was a knock at her door. Not expecting anyone, she went to the door and saw a tired looking Grissom through the peephole. She sighed. She wasn't even wearing matching socks, let alone the rest of her rumpled state. She opened the door, applesauce in hand, and said, "Hey Grissom. Please tell me you haven't come to take me to a new case. I just got home."

"Oh. Ah. No. Actually, this is more of ah…personal assistance."

She gave him a confused look, eating another spoonful of applesauce.

"I'm lost."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "You know Grissom, I think you're more tired than I am. You want me to give you a lift to your house?" she deadpanned.

"That's just it – my house is under extensive construction. My property managers are putting me up here for the duration."

She choked on her applesauce.

His eyes widened and he rushed to say, "Here, that is, in the apartment complex." He handed her a slip of paper with an address on it. "The problem is that I keep getting turned around in these halls and I can't find the place." His frustration was evident and she took pity on him, putting the applesauce with the spoon in it on the kitchen counter.

"It's okay," she said. "It took me a while to get used to this place when I first moved in. I can show you where this is. Come in for a minute while I go grab some shoes."

He stepped through the doorway as she padded across the living room and went into her bedroom. _Shit, this place is a mess! He must think I'm such a slob._ "Sorry about the mess right now, with all the rush the last couple days my housekeeping has kinda lapsed." She called out from rummaging in her closet. Finding her Birkenstock's, she took off her socks and chucked them into her laundry basket.

"Don't worry about it. I hate to think about what my house looks like right now," he said as she re-entered the living room. She finished pulling her hair back into a ponytail as she reached him at the doorway. Snatching her keys and cell off the counter she gestured for Grissom to precede her. As she locked the door she remembered the applesauce was still on the counter and the TV was still on. _Oh well, I won't be that long._

"So how long do they figure you'll be outta your house?"

"Somewhere in the ballpark of two to three weeks. Do you mind if we run out to my car quickly? I just have to grab my bags."

"Sure, sure. No problem." She was still trying to digest this new information. Gil Grissom was going to be her neighbor for a month.

--

Grissom pulled his two bags from the Tahoe, eyeing the butterfly displays. He could come back for them, but he was reluctant to leave them in the hot SUV any longer than necessary. Sara appeared to follow his gaze because she picked up the cases and looked at him expectantly. "That it?" she asked.

"Yes. If you want to lead the way…?" He set down a bag to shut the hatch and locked the car. Sara nodded and waited for him to finish before heading through the maze of hallways. Funny how he had been able to find his way to her apartment. Following her, the hallways began to make more sense and he even saw small signs that he had missed the first time around. She finally came to a stop in front of a door whose number matched the paper he had been given. The silence of the walk hadn't been uncomfortable, surprisingly enough. They were both clearly frazzled. He set down his bags to rummage through his pockets for the set of keys the property manager had given him. While looking down he noticed that Sara had painted her toenails. They were a deep, rich red that begged him to love the long narrow feet of the woman he found so hard to resist. It was quite a surprise to see those toenails peeking out from demure Birkenstock's, especially given the fact that she didn't paint her fingernails or bother much with makeup. He wondered what else he could discover about Sara if he dedicated the time to it.

He got the right key and opened up the door to an oatmeal world – land of the forever beige. Sara raised an eyebrow and gestured with her chin towards the door. "After you. I don't want to deny you the pleasure of crossing the threshold for the first time." She smiled. A very different picture of Sara flooded his mind at her words – one that involved more white than beige. _Okay Gil, get a grip. Thank Sara and go to bed._ The images went from white to something decidedly less innocent. He picked up the bags and stepped into the smaller, and less cozy, version of Sara's apartment. He felt her arm graze his as she passed him and went into the living room. She set the display cases on the coffee table. She looked up from arranging them and said, "I was getting nervous holding them. I was sure I would drop them."

"I would trust anything I put in your hands to be safe."

She cocked her head to the side and stared at him. He cleared his throat. The sound broke her attention and she blinked her eyes rapidly a couple times. "Well, I left my applesauce sitting out. And you need some sleep. Hell, even I need some sleep. I'll see you later Grissom." He murmured his thanks as she passed him and shut the door behind her. She leant her head back briefly and murmured, "You'd trust me with anything but yourself."

Grissom leant his head against the door, the hallways echoing with Sara's steps.

--

It wasn't too bad, he mused, living near the object of his deeply buried affections. In fact, in a scene reminiscent of "_Rear Window_", he could actually see her living room window from his new apartment. On the whole, the little apartment provided for him wasn't too bad but he certainly looked forward to being able to return to his townhouse. He had forgotten how confining a one-bedroom apartment could be. Also, whoever had done the decorating for the apartment had clearly decided to err on the side of caution and stuck with a palate of stain hiding browns. He wouldn't be surprised if the furniture was scotch-guarded. He missed his townhouse with all the things that he thought he didn't use, until he didn't have access to them. Like his movies when he couldn't get to sleep. Sitting on the overly firm couch he flipped channels and decided that daytime TV was definitely as bad as he remembered it. He watched as a talk show suddenly exhibited thrown chairs and gratuitous bleeping and thought that it might actually be worse.

He turned off the TV and turned on the radio to NPR as he opened the paper to the daily crossword. He put his feet on the questionably stable coffee table as he began to work on the puzzle. He found his attention drawn to tantalizing glimpses of Sara's apartment. _This is wrong, what are you – twelve? Sneaking glances when you think she doesn't notice? Get a grip, Gil. She's your coworker. Respect her privacy._ A yellow curtain trailed out the window, teasing him as if he was a bull that could be made to charge at the distraction in front of him. Sara wandered over to the window and adjusted the curtain before going to sit on her couch.

_--_

Sara pulled the afghan from on top of the couch and tucked it around her lap where she sat. Picking up the bowl of cereal from the coffee table she unenthusiastically turned on the TV. Spooning up the cereal before it could get soggy, she flipped through the channels hoping that something had caused daytime TV to suddenly not suck. She paused on Jerry to see chairs thrown and sentences bleeped out to an ungrammatical extent. _Some things never change_, she thought. Which was a bad train of thought for her to start on because she automatically thought of Grissom and began to analyze the imagination he used in deflecting her attentions. She knew the man was a genius but the ploys he used were at a grade school level. She paused on Lifetime Network, saw that as usual they were playing some Hallmark movie, and settled on A&E. Cold Cases would be on at some point.

She pushed her spoon through the cereal. The disturbance she caused was quickly enveloped and assimilated by the corn flakes. She blinked back tears. There was no way that she was going to cry because she turned her cereal into a metaphor for her relationship with Grissom. A tear found its way down her cheek and landed on the inert spoon handle. She threw back the afghan and went to the sink, draining off the milk before tossing the remainder of the cereal into the trash. She washed the bowl and spoon, setting them on the drying rack before grabbing the box of corn flakes and throwing it in the trash too. She wiped more tears away. _I never liked corn flakes all that much anyway. They get too soggy too quickly._ She walked back to the couch with every intention of setting it to rights before going to bed, but found herself instead lying down and holding a throw pillow to her chest as she wept. The whole situation was just so…so…Lifetime Network.

--

He had just crawled into bed after an invigorating bowl of cereal, ready and willing for sleep to take him. Of course his cell phone started its ringing migration across the nightstand just then.

"Grissom," he gruffly said, not bothering to look at caller ID. He'd already taken off his glasses, the person calling could just deal with it. The voice on the other end captured his attention.

"Grissom, I need a favor, no questions asked, right now."

"Well, ah, sure Sara." He rubbed his tired eyes and wondered what emergency would possibly require Sara Sidle to call him. "What can I do for you?"

"Do you have a Costco card?"

--

Sara sighed as she hung up the phone. She hoped that Grissom wouldn't take too long and in the meantime divulged herself of her clothes, chucking them into a basket in the corner of her bedroom. _I'll deal with them later._ She grabbed a couple of lemons from the bowl in the bathroom and started the tap running while she sat on the toilet lid, spiral cutting the lemons. She needed to take the edge off before Grissom came.

--


	2. Chapter 2

Grissom balanced a box on his hip and reached out an arm to press the doorbell. He felt a little nervous coming to her place like this, but she had asked him to…. His thought train derailed. The Sara who opened the door was a different creature than the one he knew. This Sara was wearing a pair of cutoff shorts that incited a raise in his blood pressure, paired with an old t-shirt with…a joke about electrons on it? His nostrils flared as he detected lemons and, he sniffed again, skunk?

"You know, I've heard of borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbors, but I do believe that this a first for tomato juice."

"Haha, Grissom. If I didn't need what you've got so badly, you might be in trouble."

He raised an eyebrow and thought, _I'm in trouble now_. "So do you want me to just stand here holding this for all your neighbors to see, or are you going to let me in?"

She flashed him a grin and opened the door further. "Hey, it's your olfactory senses. C'mon in."

"So how did you wind up on the business end of a skunk?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes as she unpacked the cans from the box. "That DB you sent Greg and me to tonight had some unusual tastes in pets. We noticed one of the cages was empty, but what do you expect when the damn thing is labeled "Fluffy"?"

He opened his mouth to make his usual crack about assumptions but she forestalled him with one pointed finger and continued with her story.

"I went into the bedroom to check things out, when I heard a rustling under the bed and the next thing I know this skunk comes rushing out, sprays me, and bails. I heard Greg and the officer swearing in the next room but fortunately for us Fluffy just missed his cage. Of course, my aromatic fate had already been sealed by that point."

Grissom smirked.

"So I just finished up and had Greg drop me off here on the way back to the lab instead of lending this scent to my car. He's going to pick me up later tonight, assuming of course I'm not going to stink up his car like I did the Denali. I think we'll be getting a detailing bill for that. As for the tomato juice, when I was a kid we used to wash our dogs in tomato juice to get rid of the smell. I figure it can't hurt me any to try the same." Her half-smile was devastating.

Grissom thought for a minute, containing the laugh that wanted to come out. He didn't want her to think he was laughing at her, he liked standing in her doorway for a change. "You know, technically the tomato juice is only acting as a perfume to cover up the initial smell. If you really want to get rid of the smell, you're going to have to wash the effected parts of you in a mixture of 1 quart of 3 hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup of baking soda and a teaspoon of liquid detergent. You might wind up with some lightened hair but unless you do something you're going to be pungent for a while. The thiols cause the initial release of smell but there are thioacetate derivatives that will be converted by water hydrolysis…."

"…Causing a fresh release of the odor. Which is why I should use the baking soda and hydrogen peroxide, because the oxidation will cause the thioacetate molecules to change to sulfonic acids and lose their odor causing properties." She nodded. "Because the nose is denuded with the skunk odor, the tomato juice acts as a kind of palate cleanser." She laughed and Grissom joined in.

A silence fell briefly and Grissom looked around what he could see of her apartment. The last time he had only gotten a vague impression, not wanting to barge into her personal space. It was both what he expected and surprising.

It was quite clean but comfortably cluttered. It was comfortable space full of earth tones, set off by the purple walls of the living room and the cherry stained cupboards in the kitchen. An olive leather couch with a matching chair was the focus of the living room; a coffee table with textbooks and magazines scattered on top was between the set. The desk in the back corner had paperwork scattered across the top; the chair was drawn away, pushed up against the bookshelf that was next to the desk. He could see textbooks on physics and chemistry, remnants from Berkley and Harvard.

Across from the couch, next to the doorway that presumably led to her bedroom, was a small entertainment center. Her TV perched on her VCR and the DVD player next to it had an English dictionary as well as a biology textbook piled on top of it. Sara apparently noticed his lingering attention on the oddity of her DVD player because she interrupted his analysis of the room with an explanation.

"Ah, yes. I see you've noticed my quality entertainment unit. I got the DVD player on sale and didn't realize until too late that there was a reason it was so cheap. Sometimes it spins the disc too quickly so the mass on top of the player helps slow it down. Getting the disc in is tricky sometimes too." She trailed off.

"You could ride into work with me tonight you know. Why make Greg pick you up? I'm already here after all." He realized what he had just offered and how it might look to people in the office.

She cocked her head to the side thinking a moment before saying, "Thanks. I'd like that. I'll call Greg before I go hit the shower."

Well, it was clearly too late now for him to rescind the offer.

"Okay, I guess I'll let you enjoy your tomato juice, or baking soda, in peace." He paused at the door. "I like your shirt incidentally."

She gave him a blank look.

"What did one electron say to the other electron?"

She laughed and looked down at her chest, reading upside down. "Ohh, right. 'Don't get excited, you'll only get into a state!'" She looked sheepish as she caught his eye. "Well, I didn't know how much of this aromatherapy was going to rub off on my clothes and since I already had one outfit ruined, I pulled out some clothes from university that I didn't mind if they got trashed. This was the physics department shirt one year."

He nodded his understanding, a smile lighting his face. "Well, I'll come back at about 30 minutes before shift starts."

Just as he left he said over his shoulder, "I looked up the basic chemical background before I came." He winked. "I'm sneaky like that."

--

Sara sighed as she towel dried her hair. It had been a risk to wash it with the same solution as the rest of her, but the thought of the tomato juice wearing off and being enveloped in skunk again was a greater risk. Sadly that left her where she was now – standing in front of the mirror, considering what to do with her newly streaked hair. It wouldn't have been all that bad if the results had been more consistent. And less brassy. _Well, I could always go get some Kool-Aid like when I was fifteen. That would trump Greg's current do._ There was no way to get out of this situation gracefully.

Well, not until one o'clock next Tuesday when she had a hair appointment with Catherine's hair stylist. With all the styles Catherine went through, surely the man would be able to help her. She sighed. In the meantime there wasn't much she could do but wear a hat and brace herself for her coworker's comments. She glanced at the bedside clock, it was almost quarter past; Grissom would be there soon. She hung the towel over the shower bar, twitching the fabric so that there weren't any bunches. She started brushing her hair as she walked into her bedroom.

She tossed her brush on the bed and grabbed a pair of khaki's from the closet. A little touch up with the iron and they'd be fine. She plugged in the iron and lay the pants down on the board. She turned back to the closet and flipped through the hangers. She settled on a maroon sleeveless shirt with a high scoop neck. Pulling the shirt on she went back to the board and started ironing with long, smooth strokes. She unplugged the iron and pulled on the pants. She loved the feeling of just warmed fabric on her skin, no matter that it was already so warm in Las Vegas. Sara glanced at the clock again. Almost time for Grissom to be here. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and grimaced; the garish highlights showed even more. _Thank goodness for hats_, she thought as she pulled the LVPD cap over the ponytail. She was tying her laces when the doorbell rang.

"Hey," she said as she opened the door. "Right on time!"

"Well, I'm not one to leave a lady stranded. As long as you don't stink up my car like the Denali." Said Greg.

_Oh shit. I forgot to call Greg_.

He grinned at her. "But you're not smelling too bad anymore, maybe we'll only have to leave one window open." He cracked.

_Okay Sara, how are you going to avoid embarrassing everyone or hurting people's feelings?_ "C'mon in Greg. I've just got to make a phone call real quick."

She walked into her bedroom and picked up her house line, dialing Grissom's number from memory. _Which is a bad sign in itself when the only numbers you have memorized are the lab, the take-out places', and your boss's cell number._

"Grissom."

"Hey, it's Sara."

"Oh, hey. I was just about to come over. Did you need more time?"

"Uh, no. The thing is I got distracted making that baking soda mixture and –"

"Sara, can I have one of your V8s?" Greg called.

"Yah sure," she said and brought the receiver to her ear again. "And I –"

"Forgot to call Greg?"

She sighed. "Yah. Sorry, I really appreciate your offer though."

"It's fine. I just thought it would make life easier for everyone. I'll see you at the lab."

"Okay, I'll see you there."

"Bye."

Sara hung up the phone. She hoped that he wouldn't think she was blowing him off. She'd been so shocked at his offer that it had taken her a minute to accept. Of course, it wasn't like other people didn't carpool. Especially since her car was still at the lab. It all made perfect sense. It was the look in his eyes when he offered – a buried hopeful look shortly overwhelmed with fear after the words left his mouth. She hadn't wanted to give him a chance to retract the offer. Of course, then she went and negated the whole effort by forgetting to call Greg. It figured. She walked back into the living room.

"So what inspired the health kick, Sara? Or is it more of a beauty kick?" He tweaked her ponytail to smell it before crinkling his nose. "Phew. That sure doesn't smell like tomato juice." He looked closer at her hair. "You do something to your hair Sara?"

She ducked as his hand grabbed at the hat. She backed towards the door, laughing. "Oh no you don't Greggo! I will defend my honor to the death. Now move so I can lock the door!"

He moved out into the hallway whining, "Awww, c'mon now Sara! It's just hair! Lemme see…we don't judge here!"

"Well, let's just leave it at the mixture I used to remove the skunk smell also removed some color. Resulting in something I'm not too proud to cover with a hat, okay?"

Greg just eyed her hat for a moment before shrugging and saying, "Okay, but you never know. The Gregmeister might be able to help. I've had some troublesome hair in my day."

Sara snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yah, and I think I was there." She elbowed him. "Thanks anyway. I've got an appointment with Catherine's hair stylist next week."

A look of awe, or was that fear, passed over Greg's face. "Next week? How did you manage that? Offer him your firstborn's virgin hair?"

"Haha, Greg. All I know is that Catherine set it up for me."

"No, seriously. It can take months to get an appointment with her guy. I'm amazed."

Sara thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. "Well, then I guess I'd better thank Catherine later."

They'd reached Greg's car by that point and he gallantly opened the door for her. "Your chariot, m'lady."

Sara raised an eyebrow. "I can open the door myself."

Greg looked sheepish. "Actually, you can't. Door handle's busted; I have to jimmy it each time."

She looked at the car apprehensively.

"Oh, you can get out fine. It's just getting in that's the problem." He hastened to explain.

"Well," she said as she got in, "if I die, you get to explain to Grissom why he's down one CSI."

--


	3. Chapter 3

Grissom heard an echo of Sara's laughter come faintly down the hallway and paused until he thought he wouldn't meet them in the parking lot. He knew that Sara's reason was perfectly understandable. She certainly had sounded sad – or maybe wistful – when she was apologizing. There was no reason to think that she had suddenly decided it would be a bad idea to ride with him to the lab. Unless, of course, she thought that he didn't want to drive her. He groaned. She may over-speak when she was around him but he over-thought when he was around her. _Which is worse, I wonder? At least her method precipitates action while mine…._ He sighed and looked around. _Mine precipitates lurking _

_in hallways._

He pulled into the lab parking lot to see Greg's car already parked and empty. _Christ, how fast was he driving anyway? He's so young…._He stopped that train of thought before it progressed any further. He had delayed so that they would get to the lab first. There was no reason to go pull Greg's DMV records. No reason at all.

He walked into the lab, still ruminating over plausible excuses and picked up the night's assignments. He glanced down at the lone file. Apparently there were nights when Las Vegas was capable of being boring. He walked into the break room and cleared his throat lightly. Greg stalled mid-grab for Sara's hat and she hastily sat down across the way from him. Grissom raised an eyebrow at the pair, noting Sara's change in hair color. He had always thought she looked cute in that cap, much better than that old beanie she would occasionally wear.

"Look's like we've only got one case thus far. It's a DB in a nursery. There are some bugs so I'll come along with you both and if there's another call, then Sara can take it." He looked at them both; they were nodding. "Okay, let's go."

--

Grissom sifted his fingers through the soil around the body, a mix of dirt and shredded bark. He sighed, "Well, there are bugs on this guy but they're all of the basic decomposer variety typically found in a nursery." He watched as Sara picked one of the bugs up and placed it in her palm.

"When I was a little kid, I remember going to the park and digging through the sand to get to the clay underneath. Closer to the grass there'd be these little rolly pollies and my brother and I would nudge them until they curled into a ball. Sometimes they couldn't quite roll into a full ball – it was like they got stuck halfway." Sara looked up from her palm to Grissom, a crooked smile on her face. "I've never seen rolly pollies here though, I thought it was too hot."

"Well, normally it is. There are several species of pill bugs; the two you were talking about are some of the most common – Cylisticus convexus and Trachelipus rathkei. Pill bugs are actually in the Class Crustacea, one of the few species from that class to adapt well to land."

"I've always been amazed at the way nature can tie together things that appear so different but once you dig deep enough – they're related. This little guy –" she glanced down where the bug was making its way up a gloved finger and continued, "—and a lobster."

He smiled and peered at the bug in her hand, saying, "Well, this little fellow won't be rolling up." His gloved finger grazed her palm as he nudged the pill bug, which stopped its movement until Grissom withdrew his finger. Sara's breath had stopped for a moment; normal people would not wonder how that touch would feel without the latex between them. Of course, most 'normal' people didn't wear latex as a regular part of their job.

Grissom blithely continued on, "If you look closer, you'll see that he has white markings at the leg joints, as well as his antennas. That marks him as a Porcellionides pruinosus; unlike C. convexus or T. rathkei he can't roll into a ball – he also appears broader and flatter than the other two species. They have different shadings and striations of color on their backs and, as we can see here, on their antenna and leg joints."

"I'd always wondered about that – if the ones that couldn't roll up had been injured or if they were being foolishly brave in the face of my finger." Sara said.

"No, not hurt, not broken. Just different. In any event, this guy just came along for the mulch and water vapor. As to how he came here –" Grissom peered at the stacked boxes and crockery around them before drawing one of the boxes off a shelf. "I'd say we can discuss that with the driver from Verdant Valleys Greenhouse Supplies, Watsonville, California." He looked up from reading the box and smirked. "Bugs are following you from California, Sara."

"Well, I guess we all follow someone," slipped out of her mouth before she took a moment to think about it. A slow flush crept up her neck but fortunately stopped short of her face. _Well, at least I didn't ask whether he would curl up into a ball or stop at a 'C' if I tickled him. I have some modicum of self-preservation left intact anyway._

Grissom just quirked an eyebrow up and opened his mouth to speak when Greg came bounding in.

"Hey, I was talking with the neighboring store clerks and Mindy told me that she saw a green delivery van peal out of the delivery area. She went over to ask our guy what had happened but ran back into her store when she saw buddy's feet stickin' out like the wicked witch of the east. She's the one who called 911."

Grissom made good use of his cocked eyebrow as he asked, "Mindy?"

Sara adopted a hurt expression and said, "Oh Greg! You've replaced me so soon!"

Greg stared at her, taken by surprise, and managed to squeak out "Never" before Sara's pager sounded.

Sara grinned at the silent pair as she glanced down, "Oh look!" She exclaimed brightly, "It's Brass!" She carefully nudged the rolly polly, _Porcellionides pruinosus_ she reminded herself, into a pot of mulch. She snapped shut her case and stood up, back arching slightly as it cracked. Sara grinned mischievously at Grissom before grabbing her case and winking at Greg as she strode past him. "Well, I guess it's on to bigger and better things; I'll see you boys later."

_Heh. Sidle, you still got it_, she thought as she turned on the Denali and called up Brass to see what awaited her.

--

Grissom entered the break room and saw Sara making herself a cup of coffee. "So I hear that your 'bigger and better' thing turned out to be a B&E." He said to her back.

She shrugged as she turned around, a ripple of motion that started across her left shoulder and terminated in her right hand as she stirred cream into her coffee. "Yah, well you make do with what comes along, right?"

An image of Hank flashed before Grissom's eyes and he found himself saying, "Well, our delivery guy came back with a dolly for the body so…." He gave a slight shrug.

"Yes, well, apparently it's not just a slow night in terms of activity – all of our criminals are slow as well." She said, rolling her eyes. "I think I'm going to go through the files of a cold case. Unless you have anything for me?"

Grissom shook his head, "I'll page you if anything comes up."

She nodded and left the break room, leaving Grissom standing there – trying to remember what he had come in for. That was twice in one night she had left him speechless; if he was honest with himself, he would have to admit to years of the effect. When she first came to Vegas, he could still manage to keep up an intelligent conversation with her. They could discuss journal articles and new methodology; they could tease and flirt with each other. But somewhere in the last two years things had been changing and he had been to self-involved to see it hurting her. To notice that she wasn't sleeping enough, wasn't eating enough, was drinking too much. He looked up one night, after asking for her assistance with his case, and he had said, "I haven't seen you in a while, have I?"

She had looked puzzled and said, "You see me everyday," before walking off. He realized at that point the extent to which he had been blocking her out, all in the name of reason and practicality. And who was it doing any good? Certainly not him. He could stand there, grousing to himself over lost chances and risks untaken for as long as he liked and it wouldn't change matters any. What he needed to do was suck it up and move on with his life – get back to the plateau where work was his life. In short, he needed to get over Sara. The trouble was, he had been trying to do that for the last ten years and had failed miserably thus far. Maybe it was time for a change in tactics – maybe it was time to give up tactics entirely.

--


	4. Chapter 4

Tight, ragged breathing – face into her pillow, feet curled up off the bed so her sneakers weren't on her sheets. She wants to go to him, grab him as he walks past her and having stood up to grab him gently take a hand and bring it to his face. Feel his skin, once so smooth and now covered by the perfectly trimmed beard, her fingertips along his jawbone. Delicate kiss. Just one, whispers of skin, lips on lips so briefly and then away. Because he knew there were more, and she knew there were more, and they could use them as they wished.

And then there he was in her apartment, she didn't know what they were doing or why he was there, but his hand was on her cheek and his eyes looked into hers. She brought her hand up to his face, such a strong intelligent face, and he said something. She couldn't quite make out the words. But then he was saying he should leave. She told him, "You don't have to if you don't want to."

Sara woke up, her mouth dry and she drained the glass of water on her bedside table. She tried to recall a time when she didn't wake up wet and aching for Gil Grissom and failed.

--

"Hi, I'm Sara Sidle. I have an appointment for one o'clock?"

"Right. Welcome Miss Sidle. If you'll just follow me…."

Sara followed the short, perfectly coifed woman to a row of sinks against the back wall. She opened a closet near the sinks and offered Sara a hanger for her jacket.

"Thanks." Sara took off her jacket and put it on the hanger the woman had provided her with.

"Go ahead and take a seat."

Sara sat at the sink at the edge of the row. The woman washed Sara's hair with strong hands and massaged her scalp; Sara's arms prickled and she shivered at the feeling of someone else washing her hair. The woman rubbed Sara's hair and scalp with the towel before gesturing towards one of the styling chairs. Sara sat down and the woman tucked the cap around her neck. "Rodrigo will be right with you. Would you care for an herbal tea or cucumber water?"

"Do you have chilled water?"

"Is Perrier alright?"

"That'll be fine, thank you."

The woman smiled and disappeared into the back while a tall, built, and, frankly, gorgeous man came over to her chair. She had been expecting someone more waifish, the stereotypical gay man from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" perhaps. This man wouldn't be out of place as a club bouncer. He smiled and extended his hand.

"Miss Sidle, I'm Rodrigo. Catherine told me of your encounter with one of our city's less finest."

"They talk about hazards in my line of work, but this is a bit unusual – even for me." She offered a half-grin.

Rodrigo chuckled. "So I've heard from Catherine." He ran his fingers through her hair, holding it out in the light. "Okay, it looks like what you used dried out your hair some and the less said about your split ends, the better. But I think that I can salvage this." He looked her in the eyes. They were a marvelous shade of green she noticed. "Do you trust me?"

"With my hair? Or with my life?" It was a paltry joke and she knew it. She couldn't help it, she hadn't dyed her hair since she was in high school. Rodrigo just raised an eyebrow and waited. She sighed, Catherine's hair typically looked good….

"Okay. Yah. I trust you."

Rodrigo laughed. "I'm guessing you would like to stick as close to your natural hair color as possible, right? Have to maintain a professional air, especially a woman in your job."

The coifed woman came back and handed Sara a glass with a twist of lemon and the beginning of condensation beading on the sides. Sara murmured her thanks before responding to Rodrigo. "Yah, I don't want high maintenance though. The most time I want to spend on my hair in the morning is ten minutes."

"Okay! We'll do color first and then cut."

"I'm in your hands."

He twirled the chair to face the mirror and placed his hands on her shoulders and said, "You won't regret it."

And for one brief moment, Sara was able to convince herself that it was Grissom standing there before blue eyes changed to green and the crinkle of tin foil broke her reverie.

The brushes looked like something a painter might use, although the tin foil squares accumulated on the top of her head looked like something out of a bad science fiction movie. She sipped on her water but was pleasantly surprised when the woman brought her a fresh glass as she sat flipping through a novel of a magazine. _Vogue_ wasn't at the top of her preferred reading list and she quickly noted that most of the content was derived from extensive ad placements. There were ad spaces that looked like articles and articles that were composite ads. She felt Rodrigo opening some of the foil packets.

"Okay, let's go rinse this out."

Sara lazily got to her feet and meandered to the sinks, an easy swing of her hips entering her usually purposeful walk. Tin foil fell like shooting stars from her mind, accompanied by the low rumble of water against her scalp. It reminded her of rainstorms in San Francisco – the rain on her roof lulling her to sleep. She never thought she'd miss fog until she'd lived in Las Vegas for five years. The image of small peaks of orange cresting from amorphous grey banks, obscuring the hills of Sausalito, entered her mind. The surcease of water brought her back to Vegas and the present. Rodrigo dried her hair and then draped the towel around her neck before guiding her back to the styling chair.

Forty-five minutes, an inch of hair, and a blow-dry later, Rodrigo was smoothing her hair with slow passes of a hair straightener. He had managed to almost match her natural hair color, leaving it just a bit darker with a sunburst of honey – or maybe amber – highlights at her crown. The tamed hair whispered against her cheeks, the razored ends creating chaos at the end of imposed order. As Rodrigo applied a product to her hair that seemed to erase the fly-aways, Sara found herself beginning to grin. She looked…hell, there was no need for modesty in her own head – she looked hot. _I wonder what Grissom will think?_ She thought as she paid the woman at the front desk. Her grin grew more mischievous, the highlights picking up depths in her eyes that were glinting with something definitely akin to pleasure.

--

_ No woman should look that hot in jeans_, he thought as Sara made her way down the hallway. The dark denim had pink, _Pink?_, contrast stitching that matched the cotton plaid shirt she was wearing. She had a denim jacket over her arm and she was chatting and…laughing with Greg. She was smiling as she walked past him, a slight nod and a quirk of her lips acknowledged him, although it wasn't the full smile he would have sworn was only ever directed at him. How long had it been since he'd gotten an open smile out of Sara? Of course, then he had to think back to a time when he'd done something to deserve that smile.

That was part of the wonder of her smile though, he never thought he'd done anything to deserve that smile and yet there it was. just like her – always appearing at the most surprising moments. He suddenly remembered Sara in her doorway when he brought over the tomato juice. He had been so riveted by her appearance that he had only now processed her expression as she saw him. She had been happy – her eyes had held his and she had smiled a wide, open, grateful – _loving_ whispered an insidious voice – smile.

Sara and Greg were continuing down the hall and Greg said something that made Sara mock punch his arm. She wasn't walking like she normally did – her stride was still purposeful but there was an extra sway of her hips. And that sway was almost the undoing of Gil Grissom. He typically avoided paying overt attention to Sara, he remembered her running after scent dogs – a smirk crossing his face, concerned that he would become too engrossed in his study of her. It was impossible not to notice her ass in those jeans though – they cupped her cheeks almost as well as he imagined his hands could.

"Looks like someone went shopping," Catherine's voice intruded on his "study".

Which was why he didn't want look in the first place. He flipped a page on his clipboard and tried to act nonchalant and said, "Yes, apparently."

Catherine tossed him a look that clearly stated that she didn't believe him for one instant. "So, Sara getting another plant?"

He glared at her over his glasses. "Aren't you done with your shift?" He said and continued on his way to his office. He sat down at his desk and flipped through the night's assignments but set them down after a moment. He knew he had no right to feel possessive of a smile, of her. Everything he did made perfect sense in his head, it just made the rest of him ache.

He shouldn't know the way her face would fall, the droop of her mouth, the rolled in right shoulder as she walked away. He shouldn't know the way her shoulders moved back, how her chin tilted to the left in inquiry as she reached out to him again. He shouldn't know the pain masked in her eyes when she looked at him.

He wanted to know how she slept – if her body, with its gorgeous long limbs, would wrap itself around him as he had so often dreamed. He wanted to know how her eyes would look as they woke up in the morning, as he made love to her. He wanted to know how her skin would taste after the sweat of passion had cooled on her body.

He needed to know why a woman like Sara Sidle could be in love with a man like him. He needed to lose himself in her.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Sorry for the delay cats and kittens. I have this thing mostly written but the ending was all wrong so I tore it apart. I should have it all finished for you soon though. In the meantime, I'll stop jabbering so that you can continue reading. Thank you all for your comments, they tickle my writer's ego pink.

Grissom was looking at her. With that _look_ – the one he got when he was piecing together a scene. A memory of Warrick saying to her, "You've got that Sara look." And her correcting him with, "You mean that Grissom look." So many ways they were similar, so many ways they could reach out, so many ways they could hurt. Now on the receiving end of the _look_, Sara found herself feeling nervous that it was being directed at her. She shuffled her feet in the doorway where she had just paused before leaving for the night.

"Anyway, I'm…ah…I'm going home. My report is on your desk…somewhere. At least, it was." She cast her eyes over the buried desk and found herself relaxing as she entered the banter of friendship past. "If a report is placed on your desk, and you don't see it – did it exist?"

"If something is felt, but not stated – does the emotion still burn in your soul?"

Sara's jaw dropped, the slight mocking smile wiped off her face as she wondered when the _hell_ Grissom had been replaced by a pod person. "Ahh," she managed to eke out before he was talking again, the arm of his glasses caught between his teeth.

"The question of a being's existence and the awareness of it's existence might also be applied to the existence of things within ourselves. By not acknowledging the presence of something, might we not hope to someday eradicate from within ourselves? Traits passed on through our genes, emotional dispositions because of environment. Could these not be removed through the simple exercise of willpower?"

_Oh sweet gods above, Grissom has burned out._ "I have to believe that there are things we can change about ourselves – things that would only bring us harm, or harm others." She thought briefly of her mother but suppressed it, as she always did, and continued. "But those are things that were imposed upon us – we can't control our environment as a child, we can't control our genes. You can't believe that you are only the sum of your genetic makeup, to discount the years of building up good experiences…." She tried to sound as though this wasn't something she had agonized over her whole life – always wondering if she bore more than a striking resemblance to her mother. If she bore the taint of a murderer as well. She shook her head and realized that Grissom had said something and was expecting an answer from her. His mouth twitched down, the rest of his face impassive, as he let out a small sigh. He stood up and spoke softly, his gaze running across the terrariums of bugs – anywhere but her.

"It was foolish of me to think that you would wait this long. You were right, I couldn't realize it until it was too late."

And he walked out the door. _No. No, no, NO_. He couldn't do that – it was _his_ office. That was a trademark _Sidle_ move. What had her turbulent past caused her to lose now? She wracked her brain – surely the words were cached away somewhere, if only she could draw them out. She stood there for half an hour, her nails gripping into her palms, willing herself to remember. All she got were images of him – at the ice rink, knelt over her hand, across his desk telling her the lab needed her. She glanced down at her palms, she hadn't drawn blood, her nails were too short, but they would be bruised tomorrow. No one would notice through the latex. She walked out of the office, gently shutting the door behind her. She placed her bruised palm on the door a moment and then walked to her car. She should go home. That's where she had been going.

She found herself in her parking spot, not really remembering how she got there. It was all a blur of lights from the lab to there – not the safest way to travel. She got out and made her way to her apartment – feet wandering down hallways by rote. She only looked up from the doorknob when her keys failed to unlock the door. The number on the door was not her own – _it figures, the state you're in_ – unfortunately, it wasn't her next door neighbor's either. It was Grissom's door and the knob was now turning. Oh god, it was turning and she was just standing there and she was supposed to go _home_. Too late – _now who's too late?_ – the door was open and there was Grissom with a glass in his hand.

A glass that didn't have much ice and more than two fingers full of amber liquid. She opened her mouth and heard herself say, "I'm lost."

His face was blank a moment and then he said, "You're tired Sara. You should go home."

She whispered, "I thought that was where I was going."

He took a couple steps into the apartment and came back without the glass. He gently took her hand in his and she barely noticed that it hurt. He shut his door behind him and led the way down the halls, trailing her behind him – tethered by his soft, strong grasp. He stopped at a door, took the keys out of her other hand and used them to open the door. He stepped inside and placed the keys on the counter carefully, they made almost no sound. Just like him. He finally released her hand, turned and walked out her door – shutting it softly behind him. She put her hand on the door, as she had at his office, and wondered when mental barriers had suddenly become so solid she could feel them beneath her bruised hands.

Sara went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. Cracking it open, she gulped the first few pulls before grabbing a second. She leaned against the door and slid to the floor. Halfway to her lowest possible center of gravity. She would have less distance to fall now. Maybe she would keep falling forever, and her anchor would never be there again. Her eyes were so dry they hurt – it seemed a miracle she could swallow beer around the lump at the base of her throat. But she could and she did. And she stayed there, leaning against the door – hoping it would crumble under her weight and let Grissom back in.

--

Grissom woke up feeling foolish, nauseous, and like a mold experiment had run rampant in his mouth. Running a fuzzy tongue along dry lips, he rolled over onto his back. The ceiling pressed down upon him and he let his head loll to the side and stared at the white base of the toilet where it met, surprise, beige linoleum. He groaned as he got up, stumbled into his bedroom and sat gingerly on the bed. He picked up the phone and called Catherine, trying to decide what the odds were that he was still drunk.

"Willows."

"Catherine, I'm not able to come in today. I've got some bug. Can you have Warrick or Nick cover for me?"

Catherine snorted. "You know, if you didn't sound so miserable, I'd suspect you and Sara were up to something. But she sounded like shit too. So I'm guessing you've done something stupid." A brief pause. "Again. Your microscope isn't there Gil, unless you've stored it up your ass which is where your head has been lately, and I don't think a plant is going to help this time. Work it out – we'll cover for you tonight."

Grissom was still trying to figure out what she had said when he realized the only thing on the line was a dial tone. He hung up and let himself fall back onto the bed. Sara had called in sick? And Catherine had thought that something might be going on between them? It was for just these reasons that he didn't want to date Sara. Except that Cath had thought that even when there wasn't anything going on. Clearly she was more of an optimist, if one with a sailor's mouth, than she let on. He sighed. So there were rumors and he didn't even get any of the benefits of dating Sara.

He snorted, Catherine thought it was so easy to just "work it out"? Who did she think she was talking to? He knew he lacked interpersonal skills. Granted, not that he really used them all that much – he preferred to observe although that got him into trouble at times as well. Emotions were a volatile substance that was rarely labeled correctly. Controlled conditions, not necessarily sterile, were what he preferred. For all Cath chastised him about having his head in a microscope, couldn't she see the allure of it? He realized that the one person who would understand was Sara, and she thought he was worth stepping away from the microscope; worth the bigger picture. Maybe he should add 'mentally unstable' to his list of reasons why he couldn't be with Sara. After all, it was as viable as the rest of his reasons. This, of course, left him on rather shaky footing.

He had stood outside her door long enough yesterday to hear her slide to the floor. He had decided that it was a good idea for him to leave before he did something more foolish than asking her if he still had a chance with her in his office. He wished he could remember how she looked when she rejected him but all that came to his mind were glass cages and hissing cockroaches. It was one of the first times in Grissom's life that he regretted paying more attention to bugs than people.

Catherine's assistance had come with a sword balanced over his neck, but he wondered now whether it hadn't been there since he woke up. Catherine had said that Sara sounded like shit, he should go check on her. It wasn't because Cath had told him to – it just gave him a good excuse.

--

Sara woke up the second time because her phone was ringing. She held the phone close to her face to make out the caller ID – "STOKES" flashed at her. She flipped open the phone.

"Hey Nicky." Hearing her own tired voice made her feel more tired. Who had known that could be possible?

"Hey Sar." Amazing how concern could travel through a phone line and envelope her. "I just wanted to let you know that 'Rick and I got your back here tonight. And if you need anything – some saltines, juice, a shoulder, someone to hold Grissom down while you bitch slap him…I'll be there for you."

Sara gave a tired laugh at the last item on his list, but it was short and she couldn't smile.

"Thanks Nicky, but I think I've got everything I need right here –" She heard a knock on her door. "Aw, you didn't have to come over." She crawled out of bed and slung on her robe as she walked to the door.

"Well, it's not like I didn't think about coming over but I decided I should call first in case you needed anything…." His voice trailed off. It was okay because she had reached the door by that point and once she glanced through the peephole she had stopped listening. Of course it was Grissom; he was like the Frisbees that always smacked her in the head when she walked in a park. No matter how much she watched out for them, they left her dazed and seeing stars while the owner offered an embarrassed apology.

"Oh." It could have been a comment, an answer, a back channeling noise of acceptance of new information or even a sigh. She sure as hell didn't know which.

"Sara?" Nick asked, just as Grissom knocked again.

"Yeah. Yeah. Can you hold on a sec Nicky?" She placed the phone against her chest, the terry cloth muffling the sounds of her opening the door.

She glanced over him, noting the puffy eyes, the mussed hair, and the half untucked slate colored polo shirt. He was wearing the same clothes from yesterday and his slacks looked definitely worse for the wear. The leather man sandals were endearing until she remembered that she shouldn't find him endearing. Apparently growing uneasy with the silence Grissom asked, "May I come in?"

"I learned something from Anne Rice's novels," she rambled. "Always know who you're inviting in. So, who are you? Supervisor Grissom? Friend Grissom? Lover Grissom? Professor Grissom?"

"What about Gil? Is he allowed to visit?"

She stared at him for a moment before nodding and stepping aside. She brought the phone back up to her ear and said, "Nicky, I'm going to have to call you back."

"Well, alright Sar. But remember, if you need anything – _all_ of my offers stand."

She smiled a bit at the resurgence of big brother Nicky and said, "Thanks, I'll call you if I need anything."

"Uh huhn. You tell Griss to play nice. I'll talk to y'all later."

Sara smiled again as she hung up the phone. She slipped it into one of the large pockets on her robe and tied the belt around her waist. She felt exposed enough without him seeing her in her worn pj's.


	6. Chapter 6

Sara shut the door, her fingers straying on the handle for a lingering moment before turning around to face Grissom. He had sat down on her couch and was flipping through an article she had dog-eared in one of her magazines.

"Aside from the reading material, was there a reason you decided to come over?"

"When I woke up, I tried to determine whether I was still drunk. I tried to take into consideration my weight, the amount of scotch I had imbibed, over how long a period of time compared with how much other fluids I had drank and food I had eaten. I was in the middle of all this when I decided it didn't matter whether I was sober or not – my feelings would still be the same." He had been flipping through the magazine while talking but now he looked up at her, his blue eyes intent upon her face. She could lose herself in the changing color of his eyes – the way they could sparkle and how quickly she could be absorbed into their depths.

Sara wondered if all that time with his head up his ass had dulled some of his finer sensibilities. "You've never said you loved me. Half of the time I can't even tell if you want to be friends with me." He winced at her words but didn't appear to be surprised.

"So what, Griss? No appropriate quotes for the situation? No let me count the ways I love you? No depths and breadths and heights that your soul could reach?"

Grissom looked at her for a moment before responding, "I don't think that Elizabeth Barrett Browning is terribly applicable to our situation." He gave a slight smirk. "I might perhaps say 'I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.'"

"And then I guess I might suggest 'I do not love you except because I love you; I go from loving to not loving you, from waiting to not waiting for you my heart moves from cold to fire.'" Her eyes bore into his, willing him to respond to five years of anticipation and rejection. 

His smirk disappeared and was replaced by something more wistful as he said, "Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll have gone so far

I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?"

Sara cursed her wavering voice as she said, "In this part of the story I am the one who dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you, because I love you, Love, in fire and blood."

Grissom reached out a hand and traced his fingers down her jawbone as he said, "I can write the saddest lines tonight. To think I don't have her, to feel I have lost her. Here the vast night, more vast without her. Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass. What does it matter that I could not keep her. The night is fractured and she is not with me. That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off, my soul is not content to have lost her."

Sara leant her head into Grissom's caress, his fingernails grazing her lips with her head's movement. "We could quote all kinds of things Gil, but they wouldn't be our words." She said quietly. "All we can do with our words is tease and hurt each other, no matter how we wish for greater eloquence. There is only this –" She stepped back, creating the smallest pocket of air between them. " – our bodies communicate far more than our voices ever could." Grissom slowly lowered his arm to gesture in the air between their torsos; the movement caused air to shift over Sara's bare arms and she shivered.

"What if I know what to do about this now?"

And Gil Grissom managed to do what she had thought was impossible – he surprised her by tucking a hand behind her back and drawing her into his body and his lips. It was hardly how she had envisioned their first kiss – certainly the spontaneity was expected but for some reason she had never pictured it happening in her living room. It was nice. Fuck that, it was more than nice. His beard tickled her cheeks and after a startled second she closed her eyes and leant into him. His hands entangled themselves in her hair, as if he wanted to pull her into his body. His soft lips, _he must use chapstick_, teased her own. He gently nibbled and sucked on her lower lip and a breathy moan escaped from her mouth into his. His tongue grazed the corner of her mouth, gaining entrance to make her appreciate anew the subtleties of the body's nerve receptors. She felt his smile against hers as they stopped, foreheads touching as if to commune in some mind meld where words wouldn't get in the way. She breathed in deeply, wanting to savor the smell of him and the mint mouthwash she had tasted on his tongue. Grissom released a slow sigh that made Sara want to kiss him again. He spoke instead.

"I know your feelings for me may have changed, but I thought maybe we could have dinner…see what happens?"

"You're cheating," she murmured. "That's my line."

He gave her a sheepish smile and said, "How about breakfast?"

--

**A/N:** Okay, I know that is _such_ a tease but don't go running off into the woods yet! There's still more, and I know you don't want to miss the ending, right?

**Notes:** The poetry Sara and Gil are quoting is by Pablo Neruda. Sara's quotes are from "I do not love you except because I love you." Gil's quotes are from "Love Sonnet XVII", "Don't go far off, not even for a day" and "Saddest Poem" respectively. The man was amazing, if you can read in Spanish I envy you the ability to read the original text but there are some damn fine translations out there.


End file.
